Political Economic Analysis in Sociology as Dramatic Rhetoric*

The relationship between political economy and social problems advanced by S. M. Miller in his presidential address to the Society for the Study of Social Problems is analyzed. Political economy is judged to qualify as ritual drama as much as science or as ideology because (1) political economy reduces Maclver's distributive and conjunctural phenomena to collective phenomena, (2) it fails to grapple directly with political and economic obstacles to its proposed policies, and (3) it does invest these obstacles with symbolism. The function of ritual drama is suggested and the concept is applied to the work of other sociologists.     

Urbanization and warming of Phoenix (Arizona,USA): Impacts,feedbacks and mitigation

This paper examines the impacts, feedbacks, and mitigation of the urban heat island in Phoenix, Arizona (USA). At Sky Harbor Airport, urbanization has increased the nighttime minimum temperature by 5°C and the average daily temperatures by 3.1°C. Urban warming has increased the number of misery hours per day for humans, which may have important social consequences. Other impacts include (1) increased energy consumption for heating and cooling of buildings, (2) increased heat stress (but decreased cold stress) for plants, (3) reduced quality of cotton fiber and reduced dairy production on the urban fringe, and (4) a broadening of the seasonal thermal window for arthropods. Climate feedback loops associated with evapotranspiration, energy production and consumption associated with increased air conditioning demand, and land conversion are discussed. Urban planning and design policy could be redesigned to mitigate urban warming, and several cities in the region are incorporating concerns regarding urban warming into planning codes and practices. The issue is timely and important, because most of the world's human population growth over the next 30 years will occur in cities in warm climates.     

Talcott parsons and the “far east” at Harvard, 1941–48: Comparative institutions and national policy

This article traces the involvement of Talcott Parsons in research and teaching about Asian nations, especially China and Japan, in the period of World War II. The data indicate that, in contrast to his Eurocentric image, Parsons worked to develop a global perspective in studies on comparative institutions. This approach, inspired by the sociology of Max Weber, also addressed the practical needs of policy makers in connection with the war effort. Within Parsons’s intellectual biography, it stands between the “voluntaristic” framework of his early treatise, The Structure of Social Action (1937) and the later non-historical formalism of The Social System (1951) for which he is perhaps most famous. An understanding of this relatively unknown phase of Parsons’s work is therefore indispensable for an adequate appreciation of his career as a whole.     

Evidence for the use of an algorithm in resolving inconsistent and missing Indigenous status in administrative data collections

Measures of the gap in living standards, life expectancy, education, health and employment between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous Australians are primarily derived from administrative data sources. However, Indigenous identification in these data sources is affected by administrative practices, missing data, inconsistency, and error. As these factors have changed over time, assessing whether the gap between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous Australians has changed over time, based on data unadjusted for these sources of error can potentially lead to misguided conclusions. Combining administrative data on the same individuals collected from different sources provides a method by which a more consistent derived Indigenous status can be applied across all records for an individual within a linked data environment. We used the Western Australian Data Linkage system to produce derived Indigenous statuses for individuals using a range of algorithms. We found that these algorithms reduced the amount of missing data and improved within‐individual consistency. Based on these findings, we recommend our Multi‐Stage Median algorithm be used as the standard indicator of Indigenous status for any reporting based on administrative datasets when multiple datasets are available for linkage, and that algorithmic approaches also be considered for improving the quality of other demographic variables from administrative data sources.     

Rural Environmental Concern: Effects of Position,Partisanship, and Place

The social bases of environmental concern in rural America resemble those for the nation as a whole, but also reflect the influence of place. Some general place characteristics, such as rates of population growth or resource‐industry employment, predict responses across a number of environmental issues. Other unique or distinctive aspects of local society and environment matter as well. We extend earlier work on both kinds of place effects, first by analyzing survey data from northeast Oregon. Results emphasize that “environmental concern” has several dimensions. Second, we contextualize the Oregon results using surveys from other regions. Analysis of an integrated dataset (up to 12,000 interviews in 38 U.S. counties) shows effects from respondent characteristics and political views, and from county rates of population growth and resource‐based employment. There also are significant place‐to‐place variations that are not explained by variables in the models. To understand some of these we return to the local scale. In northeast Oregon, residents describe how perceptions of fire danger from unmanaged forest lands shape their response to the word conservation. Their local interpretation contrasts with more general and urban connotations of this term, underlining the importance of place for understanding rural environmental concern.     

The Career Development Quarterly: A Centennial Retrospective

The Career Development Quarterly has been the premier journal in the field of vocational guidance and career intervention since its inception 100 years ago. To celebrate its centennial, 3 former editors trace its evolution from a modest and occasional newsletter to its current status as a major professional journal. They recount its history of publishing foundational articles in vocational guidance practice and career development theory, commitment to improving counseling practice, leadership in public policy and social justice issues, and expansion to international audiences.     

Emergency Department Staff Planning to Improve Patient Care and Reduce Costs

In the face of high staffing costs, uncertain patient arrivals, and patients unsatisfied with long wait times, staffing of medical emergency departments (EDs) is a vexing problem. Using empirical data collected from three active EDs, we develop an analytic model to provide an effective staffing plan for EDs. Patient demand is aggregated into discrete time buckets and used to model the stochastic distribution of patient demand within these buckets, which considerably improves model tractability. This model is capable of scheduling providers with different skill profiles who work either individually or in teams, and with patients of varying acuity levels. We show how our model helps to balance staffing costs and patient service levels, and how it facilitates examination of important ED staffing policies.